I glance at Griffin again. His jaw is bulging so much that it looks like he’s trying to break his own teeth, but I appreciate his silence. Maybe he’s still absorbing all this. Maybe he’s overwhelmed. I know I am, and I grew up with these two.
Ares roughly shoves Selena aside to get a clear view of me again. I’ve never seen anyone manhandle Selena, and it startles a gasp out of me. But with the ease of an Amazon warrior, she recovers her lost ground and then retaliates with a hard hit of her own. Ares lowers his head, getting ready to charge. Selena shifts her balance, magic swells in the air, biting at my skin, and I see a clash of epic proportions coming that could knock us all into the next realm.
“Stop!” I cry, jumping between them. These two are the closest I’ve ever had to a real mother and father, despite both my parents still being alive, and it’s surprisingly painful to see them at odds. It’s probably not a good idea to get between them when they’re angry and primed for a fight, but if there’s one person in this world I don’t think either of them will hurt—at least not on purpose—it’s me.
“What in the name of the Gods is going on?” Piers demands.
I snap my head around to glare at him. In fact, we all do.
“I thought he was the smart one.” Ares gestures impatiently toward Piers. His words probably make Griffin bristle even more. I don’t know. I don’t look.
Okay, I look. Griffin appears to be more intensely worried than angry. He’s frozen in place and keeping Kaia behind him, looking like he’s not sure what to do—something I know must not sit well with him.
“You. Summoned. Me.” Ares’s drawn-out, mocking tone calls into question Piers’s vaunted intelligence. “Now I have to take someone off to endless war. Very. Good. Plan.”
The God coats each word in layers of sarcasm, but I see no humor anywhere. In fact, I feel sick again.
Piers lifts his arm and points at Selena. “Take her!”
Selena makes an incredulous sound. Part laugh. Part snort. I hardly hear it because blood roars in my ears, and something inside of me snaps. My relief was so potent, so profound. But now that reassurance has been ripped away again, and it’s all Piers’s fault.
I lunge at Piers so fast he doesn’t see me coming. My fist hits his nose. While his head is still snapping back and crimson beads are flying through the air in a perfect, gory arc, I get behind him and smash one foot into the back of his knee, ignoring the flare of pain just hitting my knuckles now. The leg buckles, and he drops.
I have no idea how I moved so fast. It’s unnatural, like a blur. I don’t stop there. I slam the flat of my hand down between his shoulder blades and send him sprawling face-first into the dirt. I checked myself at the last second, a tiny shift. If I’d hit him any higher, I might have broken his neck. Part of me wonders why I didn’t.
Power springs from deep within, snapping and rolling through my veins. I feel it connecting every part of me. Blood. Flesh. Bone. My hair vibrates at the roots, rising on a tide of unchecked magic. Lightning webs down my arms. It bursts from my palms and chars the ground at my feet. The earsplitting crack of thunder seems to come straight from the hollow in my chest and shatter outward, annihilating what little restraint I have left.
Piers twists and looks up at me. His eyes widen. His jaw drops. I see him through a haze of magic—his shocked expression, his broken nose, the sudden fear in his eyes.
My ire grows, swelling along with my magic. He chose the wrong Magoi to cross. I am descended from Gods. I have ichor in my veins. Olympian power. He’s a threat to me, to my family, to all the people I love. I’m about to lose control all over him, and frankly, I don’t give a damn.
CHAPTER 4
I pounce on Piers, ready to do some serious damage, but Griffin grabs me around the waist and drags me back. I wrench in his hold. Violence pumps through my veins like liquid fire. Lightning coats my entire body, and the magic storm jumps to Griffin, crackling around us both until we’re lit up like a pair of blazing torches.
I snarl.Stupid, unpredictable magic.Nowit works? Earlier would have been better!
“Hold, Cat.” Utterly immune to any magic that could harm him, Griffin is like a grounding rod, and all that deadly, flashing power crashes straight down. The ground under our feet begins to smoke and stink.
“Calm yourself,” he grates in my ear, his implacable grip immobilizing me.
“But he just condemned Selena!” She might frustrate the magic out of me sometimes with her vagueness and secrecy, but I love her. I rely on her. She gave me shelter and a home. And now she’ll be gone!
I buck and growl, twisting furiously in Griffin’s steely arms. Lightning cracks, and thunder echoes back at me.
“Think of little Eleni.” The stubble on Griffin’s jaw scratches my temple as he curls me inward against him, squeezing. “And remember, it’s not Piers who decides. There are no good choices here. And don’t prove him right by turning into exactly what he thinks you are.”
He thinks I’m a vicious killer. Who enjoys it.
Like the quick, startling sting of a whip, shame lashes me. I stop thrashing. Griffin is right. I shouldn’t have attacked Piers. I should have been more mindful of Eleni.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Kaia’s terrified gaze. She’s looking at me like you do when you come across something both so dreadful and so astonishing that you don’t know whether to watch in fascination or to run for your life.
That’s me—dreadful and fascinating.What a mix.
Lightning abruptly stops leaping from my body, settling roughly back into whatever mostly inaccessible well it resides in.
“She wouldn’t be half as belligerent if she’d grown up with me.” Selena crosses her arms, apparently wholly unconcerned by her potential impending doom.
